While I had always imagined that my friends and family would come to prison to watch me walk across the stage, I never thought that I would be the one coming back to prison to graduate.
When I started working on my bachelor’s degree behind bars, I assumed I’d be wearing my cap and gown over prison blues. Instead, two months ago, the impossible happened: On October 2, 2024, the Honorable Judge Daniel J. Lowenthal reduced the sentence I received as a teenager – 50 years to life – to 16 years flat and time served. A new law that went into effect in January 2024 allows judges more discretion in resentencing.
On the day of the decision, I got my clothes, changed, met my family at the gate, and bussed straight to USC campus to speak on a panel answering questions from law students about the parole board process. Heidi, my lawyer who teaches there as a professor, had arranged it. On the drive, I dealt with motion sickness, answered numerous phone calls, and couldn’t eat because I felt ill. Life on the outside was fast, and it hasn’t slowed down since that day.
For months before my release, graduation had been the farthest thing from my mind. Between preparing for my resentencing hearing, working on my senior thesis, and applying to graduate school, I was consumed by planning for freedom – something I had not yet experienced as an adult since I’d been incarcerated at age 18.
My journey to this moment began years ago. Pelican Bay State Prison – California’s supermax known as the place they send “the worst of the worst” – seemed an unlikely place to start college. Yet it was there in late 2015 where I began my pursuit of higher education. COVID robbed me of my first graduation as I earned my associate’s degree from College of the Redwoods in 2021.
The second act of my education came when I transferred to the California State Prison – Los Angeles County, known as Lancaster, where I was intent on achieving my bachelor’s degree. Communication studies was my focus as a student at California State University, Los Angeles. Throughout those long days of studying and juggling leadership roles in Paws for Life K9 Rescue and facilitating classes for my community, the image of wearing my cap and gown kept me going whenever I wanted to quit.
It was what held me accountable to the promise I made to my mother. “Get your education,” she would say, and all I did was stay in the streets, neglecting her wish. This was my chance. Momma would finally get her wish to see me graduate. But that wasn’t meant to be. She passed away a year ago in October.
In those chaotic first weeks of freedom, graduation snuck up on me. I got an email from both the prison and the college reminding me of the date. It was there in the back of my mind, but I spent so much time just managing my schedule, showing up at events, and getting reacquainted with family that I almost forgot.
But I hadn’t forgotten my brothers inside. I missed these men. I grew up with them and ate with them; we all busted our butts off and supported each other throughout this bachelor’s program. A nagging feeling still hangs over me when I think of them, and I wish I could get them all out. I have a little survivor’s guilt.
When graduation came on December 5, I knew the guys would get a kick out of seeing me in colorful clothes instead of the grays and blues they forced us to wear in prison. So in an attempt to embrace my freedom to wear what I wanted, I decided to wear pink. But I had to do it right – I wore my suede pink Jordan 1s with a pink button-up.
As I approached the gate, I kept waiting for sadness or fear to creep up on me since I had spent the last years of my incarcerated life there. But those feelings never came. It just sort of felt normal. All I could truly think about was seeing my incarcerated family.
Sitting in the waiting area was a reality check. College administrators, teachers, the new college president, and my fellahs’ families kept congratulating me for graduating, but I found myself shrinking into my head about how familiar it felt to be there. I found solace talking to an old guard who had always treated us with respect. Before I knew it, I was walking the same path that I used to traverse with an escort.
I felt my old cellmate on my back as soon as I entered the prison’s A-Yard visitation room, and before long all of my brothers were there. We embraced for a big group hug. I felt at home with them. Their brother was back, no big deal, he said that he would come back; that sense of ease helped a lot with the emotions I was feeling. And I kind of appreciated not being made a “big deal.” They were making their connections to better their living circumstances, and I had a bird’s eye view of what it was like when I was still down.
My brother Alfredo Hernandez gave the valedictorian speech and did a masterful job. His mother and his wife were crying. Watching his transformation, from an insecure speech giver into this confident speaker representing our class, was like seeing my own growth reflected back at me.
Five of us who had been released returned to join our incarcerated brothers: Michael De La Cruz, Lester Galdemez, Jose “Hozer” Flores, Steven Vasquez, Arthur Bermudez, and Alfredo Hernandez. We are talking about a group of men, all serving life sentences, who are getting their degrees, and may never even experience the pace of life on the outside that has now consumed me. This one isn’t just about me… it’s about US.
For me, the degree represented a fulfillment of the promise I made to my mother. It has been a year since she left this earth, and that is something I am proud to have done for her. With this degree, I am now applying to an MBA program at Cal State LA. But more importantly, with the momentum that we now have, it’s a starting point in the journey to get my fellow graduates home.
When I left at noon, walking back out through those gates, I thought about how different this exit was from two months ago. This time I knew I’d be back – as an advocate for my brothers still inside.